Every part of your customers’ experience with your brand can impact their perception of your business. Any signs of friction means your customer relationship may be at stake. When it comes to the Health, Wellness & Fitness markets, that line is even thinner. It’s crucial to meet and exceed the demands of the customer – but what exactly do they look for and what factors can make or break an experience?
In our first blogpost of the series, we explored why customer experience matters in this booming market. Bringing all those key takeaways here, we’ll dive into what’s fuelling the market and what customers expect.
Before we dig in, we didn’t want you to miss the chance of joining an exclusive upcoming webinar all about CX in Health, Wellness, & Fitness featuring Forrester and Lloyds Pharmacy! Now you know, let’s get back to it!
CUSTOMERS ARE RESEARCHING AT EVERY ANGLE
Generally, customers are navigating between multiple channels and devices in the customer journey as part of an omni-channel web. This has evolved the customer journey into a zigzag one. When looking in the Health, Wellness, & Fitness market, customers are channel-hopping more heavily as they navigate between countless touchpoints to research and compare products and services. The motivation behind this is simple: they need confidence and trust in your product.
Social influencers have become the “new muscle” in this market, as customers lacking knowledge and experience look for tips from credible names. Health professionals are also a popular touchpoint, and businesses are trying to partner with these key influencers to drive their visibility. But what’s causing the zig-zag journey?
Credibility: of your products, services, and overall brand. This comes down to the quality of the experience a customer has with your brand. The line is much thinner in this market = get this wrong, and it can impact the credibility of your business.
Many make the mistake of rushing their digital customer experience strategy in a sprint to acquire sales. Instead, carefully curating this can help your brand run the marathon of growing customer loyalty and building your brand’s credibility.
Whether you’re an eCommerce, DTC, or Retail player, your CX needs to be as frictionless as possible. It essentially helps you to gain consumer confidence and stay at the top of customers’ mind as they look to prioritize their well-being. And to do that, you need rich customer insights to give you a clear view into your customers.
WHAT’S FUELLING THE MARKET?
AWARENESS IS RAMPING UP
Following the effects of the pandemic and lockdowns, increasing awareness of health and wellness has encouraged people to do more to take control and extra care of their physical and mental well-being. Globally, healthcare services have been able to recover from the overwhelming backlog of appointments. To gain control, people are trying to take their health into their own hands. And despite the economic crisis, 80% of shoppers intend to maintain or increase their spend in categories related to health and fitness.
CONVENIENCE IS TOO GOOD TO MISS
The ease and convenience of finding products that fulfil their needs is exactly why online channels play a key role in the buyer journey. Businesses need to make the purchase and delivery/collection journey as easy and seamless as possible for customers looking to buy health and wellness products online.
EXPERIENCE IS EVERYTHING
Your brand’s credibility is often based on the quality of the experiences you provide. Customers will also take matters into their own hands by researching your products and services across as many channels as possible. As they consume online content in both active and passive ways, there are valuable opportunities of discoverability through ads and partnerships. This creates a huge opportunity for businesses to tie together key touch points using channels like YouTube, a company website, or social media accounts (TikTok, Instagram) to drive discoverability and integrate a true omnichannel experience.
IS YOUR BRAND IN LINE WITH CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS?
As more information gets shared and more influencers have an impact in the content audiences consume, customers expectations in the health and wellness market are constantly evolving. But there are four fundamental expectations your business should deliver as a minimum.
PERSONALIZATION, BUT WITH THE PRIVACY
In their quest to hunt down the products/services for their well-being, customers want products and services that are tailored to their individual needs and preferences. Personalization that’s based on these can help them fulfill their needs as quickly and efficiently as possible, with ultimate accuracy – just as they would when asking in-store.
Generally, 72% of consumers only engage with personalized messaging. Leveraging customer insights and automation can help you to segment customers into groups and target them with personalized messaging and product recommendations.
Consumers are also becoming more conscious of how their data is used. Unifying your customer using a Customer Data Platform is a good basis. But enriching this data with first-party data and zero-party data capturing helps you be GDPR compliant as customers are willing to give more information, i.e. gamification can help customers give more information in terms of products they’re looking for with an interactive quiz.
QUALITY & AUTHENTICITY
Consumers are more hesitant in their purchase decisions. The market is expanding and as a result, some products are not exactly what they are said to be. Educating and advising shoppers about your products, the ingredients, and the benefits can help keep customers onsite and engaged. Influencer marketing can also play a big role here, as 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations.
Offering articles and explanations that include information on the solution, how to use the product, and how it helps via specific touchpoints can also help build knowledge and consumer confidence. This will help to drive quality and authenticity in your brand and products, to give a sense of ease that your offering is safe, effective, and backed by proper research and practices.
EASE & CONVENIENCE ABOVE ALL
Convenience is the top priority when it comes to health. Easy access to health, wellness & fitness products and services can help your brand appear overall dependable and trustworthy. Be present on the right channels, communicate quickly with customers, and provide an all-round seamless CX to validate your brand as a whole. This also helps push customers down the customer funnel at a faster rate particularly for high-intent buyers looking for a solution to their needs.
TIP: Take into consideration the needs and demographics of their customer base, and the urgency. It may be worth offering options to deliver, collect, or BOPIS, shoppers can tailor their fulfillment preferences based on their schedule.
BE TRANSPARENT – SAY WHAT IT DOES ON THE TIN
Whether your offering is product or service oriented, you need to be clear with your customers. Friction often comes to the commitment of purchasing your product/services online; whether that’s through online shopping, subscription-based models, or delivery options. Customers want to know about the products and what exactly they’re buying. They expect to have the ability to access information about ingredients, sourcing, and manufacturing processes. So, transparency is necessary as consumers are concerned and hesitant about the personal and environmental impact of the products they buy.
FUEL YOUR ECOMMERCE WITH INSIGHT-LED EXPERIENCES
Want to see how our insight-led marketing can enhance your CX with real-life examples? Together with Lloyds Pharmacy and Forrester, we discussed the trends and opportunities that will shape the health, wellness, and fitness market in 2023, while sharing successful strategies & tactics to help you stand out, including:
- eCommerce trends and predictions in 2023
- Why leveraging digital channels to help consumers change their behaviour should be a must-do
- Brand Success Story: How Lloyds Pharmacy accelerated its eCommerce business over the last two years
- Why insights need to be at the core of your Martech to succeed in this market
- Whether you’re an eCommerce, DTC, or Omnichannel Retailer in the Health, Wellness and Fitness industry, this webinar is for you!
Watch for the webinar below!
Platform
Channels
Services
Clients
Partners
Blog
Resources
Learning
About us
DE
